Your Health

By Shirley Learthart

You Can Help the NHS!

A large medical study took place in Japan in the 1980s. The aim was to find out whether there was any correlation between the provision of annual health check-ups performed on residents aged 40 or over and demand for hospital inpatient care once these individuals reached old-age.

The results were most revealing: the study showed that in a single year, when there was an increase in the rate of use of check ups from 25.5% to 27.6%, the reduction in the number of hospital bed-days for the total of 8.5 million people was 2.21 million bed days (British Medical Journal 1991; 302:615-8).

So, with the population of the UK at about 60.6 million, if we scale up a similar increase in the use of health check-ups, the NHS could potentially save 15.75 million bed days this year!

Looking at the possibilities from a local perspective, with a population of almost 90,000 in Hastings there could be a saving of 23,400 hospital bed days this year which means 64 fewer local people in hospital at the Conquest each day!

Sounds good news for the Conquest and good news if you, or a loved one, are one of the 64!

It’s often simple advice that can really make a difference to the long-term outlook for our health. Prevention really is better than cure.

Shirley